The events of the past week in Toronto have been unprecedented in Canadian history. Over 900 people were arrested, the biggest mass arrests ever in Canada, for daring to protest against the destructive policies of the G20.

Protesters and local residents were subjected to violent baton attacks, snatch squads, tear gas and rubber bullets. Sleeping people have been pulled from their homes at gunpoint in the middle of the night. Many have been beaten. People who have been arrested have beenstrip-searched and held in cages, facing long delays in obtaining legal support. We have heard numerous accounts of sexual abuse by police from women who were arrested. Journalists have been punched, arrested and had their equipment broken.

On the streets of Toronto, the mask of "liberal democracy" has slipped off and the police reminded us of the State's willingness to use blatant violence against its own population in the face of popular dissent. And thanks to citizen journalists, the alternative media andeven some in the corporate media, the truth of what happened in Toronto is slowly emerging.

In order to make sure that the actions of the police state are fully exposed, we must keep up the pressure on the police and the government.

We must also publicly demonstrate our solidarity with all those arrested so that they are released as quickly as possible and charges are dropped against all those caught up in the net of the police state.

In Toronto, solidarity rallies outside detention centres and police stations are already taking place. But just as police forces from across the province converged on Toronto for the G20, so our resistance must spread out from the epicentre of oppression to every corner of the province.

Common Cause thus calls on all those concerned to take the fight back across the province and across the country. Starting this Wednesday, June 30, we are calling for solidarity rallies outside police headquarters in as many cities as possible. Our message will be clear:

Free the Toronto 900!

Fight back against the police state! We are putting you under surveillance!

Build the resistance against the G20! Build the resistance against austerity!

To add your rally to the list and to send pictures from rallies, please email us at [email protected] Media may also use the same email address to contact us. Check the event calendar at www.linchpin.ca for updates on rallies in your city.

Do we have any? Last I heard Jack Layton was whining about broken windows at Toronto Dominion, the sniveling little fink (sorry, can't help it), knowing full well that it was the cops that set that shit up. And who executed the brutality.

When the RCMP throws everything they have at us, brutalizing our communities, i'd like to think that there is someone, somewhere IN politics, that cares about the virtual elimination of free speech -- or at least -- free assembly -- in Canada.

Libby?

Oh wait. Jack already gagged her. She's in the JDL's basement with a ball-gag in her mouth.

Call me a softy.

But I think 65% of the Canadian population should be represented in some capacity.

At the very least, and to use a tired cliche, my grandfather didn't fight the Nazis only to have Stevie Harper take over the Canadian government WITH THE FULL COMPLICITY of the "oppossition" during the greatest crisis in Canadian history.

The right to peacefully protest is supposed to be enrished in our charter of freedoms. LOL>

I don't blame Harper.

Harper is doing what any psycho would do. A tiger don't change his stripes, or a shark looking for dinner. He's dumb, he's ruthless, and he doesn't give a rat's ass about "Canada". He has a vague idea about apocalypse, like Ted Bundy had a vague idea about killing everyone on his street.

I blame the "libs" and the pathetic, almost cringe-worthy NDP, who apparently don't represent anyone at all, certainly not me, certainly not labor.

"black bloc" is an obvious psyop, but don't forget the mammoth brutality meted out against Joe and Jane Q by our beloved mounties. They increasingly resemeble the fine folks at Pinochet's Soccer Stadium. All they need is the word, and they'll be happy to brutalize. kill is next. Brilliant.

Our "elites" sure have done a fantastic job!

I say that with half-irony.

They're ready to kill you, apparently. They don't mind riding over little kids on their horses.

The Good news: a solid majority in Canada is with you.

Canadians hate waste and (mostly) hate fascism. Plus we have the second largest country in the world. So I think we'll beat the bastards.

Our Chief of Police misinformed the public as to laws that were passed. Our police arrested innocent and peaceful protesters. Those protesters were held in detention centres with little food or water.

We want to know why the Black Bloc were allowed to trash our city! We want to know why police barged into people's homes in the middle of the night! We want to know why the police thought that misinforming the public was a good idea!

Are you outraged? WE ARE! Come join us for a peaceful protest!

Those of you not in Toronto: We will be having solidarity protests in various cities on the 17th. Please join this group and help organize and spread the word!

"We want to know why the Black Bloc were allowed to trash our city!" WTF? Who's writing this? A few windows got smashed and while that does affect small businesses (I don't care about the banks one iota) it's hardly "trashing" a city of 4 million people. It wasn't the freakin barbarians at the gates. And blaming it all on the possibly fictitious BB plays right into the cops' law n order tender hands, which is where an alarming of Canadians seem to want to spend their time these days.

"We want to know why the police thought that misinforming the public was a good idea!" Well, if ya haven't figured that out already..... anyway, I hope the result here is a little more promising than the rhetoric.

But I've been pepper sprayed, and I've been brutalized by dumb shit cops for no particular reason.

Personally, I think the unions in Ontario should have headed up the effort, but since they won't, nor the "mainstream media", nor the NDP, I think "regular citiizens" should come together and enact a massive law suit. This should be augmented by demo's and the testimony of thousands of people.

I'm not sure what else would help. We have literally thousands of roid-rage monkeys dressed up in BLACK uni who get off by hurting people. That's fucked up. I'd like William Golding to write an article on cops on an island. Surely the kids would do better. They did: it's called "Lord of the Flies">

Long and short: the "NDP" has abandoned its base. I'm not an "anti-NDP" type. I was even willing to accept the pathetic censure of my favorite MP.

But this cuts to the core of our "rights" as Canadians. Yeah, my grandfather dropped bombs on Dresden. That doesn't make me any more or less qualified.

It makes me reflective. And it make me ask why ONE BILLION dollars was spent on preventing tje US from contacting the "G20".

The whole thing is a fraud - not anarchist, conservative, liberal or otherise -- just a fraud. A massive waste of money for vanity purposes.

Mick and Green Grouch, I just cut and pasted it directly from the Facebook event page. Sorry I didn't link to it - it's here.

I agree it's hyperbole to say that the black bloc "trashed our city" but I would also like to know why the cops didn't stop them from smashing store windows and lighting police cars on fire, and I think we all know the answer.

I've heard there are some women who are so traumatized by the sexual assault by the Toronto police in the detention centre, and so scared by the intimidation that followed, that they refuse to talk about it or meet with lawyers.

There needs to be an inquest of the Toronto Police and the RCMP head honcho's who directed the ISU operations.

This incredible site deserves tonnes of support, by the way. It runs daily original news, sports, cultural, and other reporting, by the employees of the largest-circulation newspaper in Québec - le Journal de Montréal - who have been locked out now for 524 days!

Nice to hear of the solidarity rallies across the country. The magnitude of Blair's goofiness moved people - wow that's heartening.

Personally, I don't expect much from our right wing corporate media. The only way to make them report responsibly is to have a media outlet that represnt the majority of Canadians in the centre and left. Only then will they have to keep up or risk losing audiences en mass. fwiw, cp24 had a decent short report that was repeated a few times.

Canadians hate waste and (mostly) hate fascism. Plus we have the second largest country in the world. So I think we'll beat the bastards.

Hear, hear!

I am not sure Durrutix and unionist' views are in tune with reality.

"According to a new Angus Reid poll that surveyed 1,003 Canadians and 503 Torontonians in the wake of the G20, 73 per cent of Torontonians and 66 per cent of Canadians believe police treatment of protesters was justified during the summit."

For most folks, their source of news and information is still TV. If you bombard them with nonstop lies, your poll is going to show the effectiveness of the lies you spread...that's all.

So it becomes important to have alternative sources of news and information and to promote them. It's also very important to talk to folks about what happened. For instance...some of the more serious allegations...about sexual harassment and sexual assault of those detained haven't been reported in the MSM. Neither have the activities of the "snatch squads"...or the at least circumstantial evidence that the so-called "black block" were possibly police agents provocateurs...or perhaps heavily infiltrated by provocateurs.

"According to a new Angus Reid poll that surveyed 1,003 Canadians and 503 Torontonians in the wake of the G20, 73 per cent of Torontonians and 66 per cent of Canadians believe police treatment of protesters was justified during the summit."

Sure - because all the authorities from Harper to McGuinty to Miller to Blair and a good chunk of the MSM kept repeating that the "protesters" were the scummy assholes that smashed windows and burned cars, or stood by and watched. Canadians and Torontonians don't like that kind of stuff (neither do I), so no wonder they replied the way they did. If and when the truth continues to come out, Canadians will respond differently - just as public opinion inevitably turned against the criminal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Once again, such poll results show how the disruptive saboteurs and the state work hand in hand to alienate people from a cause which serves their interest. And the fact that some so-called "leaders" of the mass movement still are hesitant to call sabotage by its true name doesn't help matters.

1 billion dollars can't stop 200 outraged teenagers smashing up a few city blocks. In that light, I find that people's perspective on the events of the G20 changes quite a lot. The obvious problems with the MSM message are underscored by this point.

During the G20 Summit in Toronto this weekend, 40,000 people reclaimed the streets and shutdown the city. Over 900 were brutally arrested and detained, most without criminal charges.

Arrestees reportedly have been denied access to lawyers, telephones, food and water (for upwards of 35 hours), and held in deplorable conditions in makeshift steel cages. Many have been beaten in the streets and in their homes; shot at with rubber bullets and tear gas; some have been sent to hospital with severe injuries. Many of the released are willing to testifyto either experiencing or witnessing the sexual harassment of women and Queer people, youth as young as 15 in adult cells, threats of assault/harassment, no access to medication or medical treatment, police intimidation of released detainees among their extensive list of complaints.

Come show your opposition to this growing Police State & meet us in the streets!

The Edmondon police chief said that "the police showed discretion and restraint". To me, what this instrument of oppression and his ilk mean when they spout such bullshit is 'if you call this brutality or trampling on civil liberties, you hav'nt seen the real brutality and trampling on c l we are capable of'.

"According to a new Angus Reid poll that surveyed 1,003 Canadians and 503 Torontonians in the wake of the G20, 73 per cent of Torontonians and 66 per cent of Canadians believe police treatment of protesters was justified during the summit."

Sure - because all the authorities from Harper to McGuinty to Miller to Blair and a good chunk of the MSM kept repeating that the "protesters" were the scummy assholes that smashed windows and burned cars, or stood by and watched. Canadians and Torontonians don't like that kind of stuff (neither do I), so no wonder they replied the way they did. If and when the truth continues to come out, Canadians will respond differently - just as public opinion inevitably turned against the criminal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Once again, such poll results show how the disruptive saboteurs and the state work hand in hand to alienate people from a cause which serves their interest. And the fact that some so-called "leaders" of the mass movement still are hesitant to call sabotage by its true name doesn't help matters.

Also, polls tend to reflect snapshots of time. As the information of the police action seeps out and people learn the extent of the brutality and that, really, their rights only exist so long as they don't exercise them, opinions will shift. As well, we don't know what the poll question was.